What did GATE-GEC do?

The project achieved three high-level outcomes, specific to improving learning outcomes, transitioning from one year to the next and sustainability. The project worked through a range of activities at the individual, school, home, community and governance levels to ensure sustainable support for education in Sierra Leone for the most marginalised children. We highlight the key interventions in this section.

Teacher training and developing a more inclusive and genderequitable teaching workforce

In Sierra Leone, as in many countries, a lack of qualified teachers in underserved areas, especially those typically in short supply like female teachers, undermines education for the poorest and most marginalised children. Only 27% of teachers at primary level and 14% at secondary level in Sierra Leone are female.1 This has immediate consequences on girls’ enrolment, retention and achievement, as well as school culture and the longer-term impact on girls’ aspirations, safety in school and job prospects. To mitigate these consequences, GATE-GEC successfully implemented a distance-learning model that identified marginalised young women within rural communities and supported them to train and qualify as teachers.

The model was developed by the Open University and implemented in partnership with the Ministry of Basic and Senior Secondary Education (MBSSE), Teacher Training Colleges, and Plan International. For the initial 12 to 18 months, these young women received a combination of literacy and numeracy equivalency training and were placed in primary schools in a Learning Assistant capacity. Learning Assistants were supported to pass the TCC entrance exam, after which they were referred to as Student Teachers as they studied for the next three years to qualify as teachers through a combination of work-based placement, curriculum learning through tablets, face-to-face mentoring from TCC tutors and programme mentors, and through peer-to-peer support. The programme supported the Student Teachers to sit the National Council for Technical, Vocational and Other Academic Awards examinations to become qualified teachers.

Training Programme Volunteers, Head Teachers, Boards of Governors and School Management Committees

The project has trained Programme Volunteers (PVs) (teachers who facilitated after-school study groups) and Head Teachers (HTs) in Continuous Professional Development covering subject-specific training in literacy and numeracy, gender and socially inclusive and childcentred pedagogic practices, classroom and behaviour management, learner differentiation, monitoring and assessment, safeguarding and child protection. It has provided additional training and mentoring for HTs, Boards of Governors and School Management Committees on school improvement strategies, staff mentoring and support, policy development and national legislative requirements.

Remedial sessions and study groups

Students were supported in remedial sessions to improve their learning and transition to further grades to continue their education. Across the years of GATE-GEC implementation, students have self-reported improvements in their literacy and numeracy since joining the study groups (in 2019, 98% of children reported improvements in literacy and 96% of children reported improvements in numeracy).

Targeting teacher motivation through stipends

In Sierra Leone, a large proportion of the teaching workforce are unpaid. In 2018, only 39% of teachers were enrolled on the government payroll. This can lead to lack of motivation in the role with unrenumerated teachers leaving their posts to pursue paid employment elsewhere. The project provided stipends to Programme Volunteers, Student Teachers and Newly Qualified Female Teachers (NQFTs) and learned the provision of stipends was a major contributing factor in retaining the teachers and making the teaching profession financially viable. In addition to the stipends, the training gave teachers, who are often unqualified, confidence to have dialogue and negotiation with Head Teachers on school-based and professional issues.

Creating disability friendly schools, communities and adapting teaching to children with differing learning needs

The project worked through multiple pathways to ensure children with disabilities accessed, actively participated in, and felt included in school and their classrooms. It worked to change perceptions around disability in communities through sensitisation. The project identified children with disabilities through its annual beneficiary re-verification exercise using Washington Group Questions2 and further verified the severity of disability through a screening mechanism facilitated by Humanity and Inclusion (HI), a consortium partner within GATE-GEC, who then provided referrals for advanced assessments in a medical setting.

“[The] changes in the school adaptation […] has made my school more friendly for all children and I like it”.

Male primary school student with a disability, Kenema

The project worked to make schools more accessible by adapting the environment and ensuring children had the appropriate support for their disability. Six hundred assistive devices and treatments such as wheelchairs, glasses and hearing aids were provided to children which supported them to gain independence, improve their quality of life and social engagement, and improve their ability to access and better engage in their educational development. Children spoke of the benefit of assistive devices and treatment, such as glasses and drops for eyes and ears, in relieving pain and discomfort and enabling them to better participate in class, with one child saying, “I see the black board very clearly when I use my glasses.”

In addition, 11 model schools were upgraded with disability-friendly physical infrastructure, with support from school authorities and communities, who helped in resourcing the building materials and supporting the construction work.

Community-Based Rehabilitation Volunteers

The project worked within communities and schools to ensure that children with disabilities had equitable access routes into and through their education. To conduct the disability-inclusion community mobilisation activities, the project trained locally selected and trusted community members as Community-Based Rehabilitation Volunteers (CBRVs). CBRVs conducted work within the home, school and community, ensuring children with disabilities were attending school, were provided support to access, learn and stay in school and advocated on behalf of children with disabilities and other marginalised groups at the communal level. When discussing the role of the Community-Based Rehabilitation Volunteers, a primary school girl in Kailahun noted, “He usually checks on me at school, encourages me to come to school by talking to me nicely and advising me about my education.”

More broadly, the Community-Based Rehabilitation Volunteers worked actively in the community to change perceptions around persons with disabilities, mainly through community sensitisation events where they spread key messages on caring for and educating children with disabilities in the community and through individual discussions with families. Children with disabilities supported by CBRVs speak of changes in perceptions and positive attitudes towards them by their parents and the community.

“The community activities has changed the mind set […] of people on disability issues”

Female primary school student with a disability, Kenema

Parent of primary school child,

2 https://www.washingtongroup-disability.com/ question-sets/wg-short-set-on-functioning-wg-ss/

Community-Based Rehabilitation Volunteers also worked at the school level to discuss inclusion in study groups and work with Itinerant Teachers, educators specialising in the education of children with disabilities, to implement Individual Education Plans, a process to identify what additional support needs a child has and to ensure that parents, caregivers and teachers can work together to ensure those needs are met. Itinerant Teachers supported 329 individual children with learning difficulties, guided by their individualised plans, providing individualised support to the child’s learning. PVs worked closely with Itinerant Teachers and Community-Based Rehabilitation Volunteers to support the learning, social and emotional needs of children with disabilities within the project, and they received training on inclusive pedagogic teaching and learning practices and developing differentiation strategies to support the individual needs of each child in study groups and in classrooms.

“CBRVs come to see if we are treated equally.”

Male primary school student with a disability, Kailahun

Village Savings Loan Associations

The project implemented Village Savings and Loan Associations (VSLAs) as mechanisms for overcoming economic and financial barriers in education for the families of the most marginalised children. Village Savings and Loan Associations are groups with a maximum size of 25 people, who received financial and entrepreneurial training, saved money collectively and received loans from within the group. The aim was to incrementally increase household income and foster resilience to shocks among the poorest households. The project was successful in creating over 200 self-sustaining groups across the four4-year duration of the project. 76% of Village Savings and Loan Associations members are women and these women hold leadership and executive roles within most of the groups.

“With this VSLA group, I can say that I have gained self- employment which will enable me to support me and my family.”

Female Village Savings and Loan Associations member, Kono

Involving the community through score-carding and Village Agents

The project established score-carding, a community-based feedback and accountability mechanism, an innovative way of obtaining feedback from children in schools to evaluate the quality of education and surface issues to make schools safer and more inclusive. The approach brings together school leaders, local government and others to identify issues and mutually generate action plans to improve the provision and quality of girls’ and children with disabilities’ education. While score-carding ceased during the school closures, efforts were made to act on the ongoing actions. Suggestion boxes were moved to community locations when schools closed and continued to be monitored to ensure children’s safety. Upon schools re-opening, suggestions boxes were retained in both school and community settings.

“Since they brought the suggestion box in our school, that has made the harassment by male teachers to girls […] reduced and also the collection of money for grade has been minimised.”

Female Junior Secondary School student, Moyamba

To ensure communities were engaged and mobilised to offer a more supportive and protective environment for girls, Village Agents engaged their Village Savings and Loan Associations groups in Positive Parenting training which involved reflective dialogue around girls’ education, gender, power dynamics and Gender Based Violence within the home. These conversations shifted attitudes and supported parents to adopt more positive practices within the home that enabled and supported girls’ return and retention in school, as well as general learning. Parents talked of the benefit of these sessions, specifically around gaining awareness of gender equitable distribution of chores, managing conflict and effectively communicating with their children. As one parent pointed out,“[I] Have learned to involve my children in what I do, talk with them, and have been practicing positive discipline in my home and community.”

“[The positive parenting session] has brought oneness in the household.”

VSLA member

Safeguarding reporting mechanisms

Safeguarding reporting mechanisms have been embedded into schools and communities since GEC 1 (since 2013), with the endline evaluation reporting improvements in safeguarding protocols over the course of the project. The project prioritised child safeguarding, gender equality and social inclusion at all levels by providing best practice training to educators and establishing referral pathways for reporting issues of child abuse and violence. GATE-GEC utilised an intersectional approach, with a focus on gender and inclusion, with targeted attention to the educational needs of children with disabilities and a focus on GESI, safeguarding and child protection.

Collaboration with ministry, school structures and communities to ensure effective implementation and sustainability

A foundational strength of the project was its effective partnerships and collaboration with the government stakeholders at district and chiefdom levels, the school-level authorities, and the communities. The MBSSE and Teacher Services Commission were the key stakeholders with whom the project proactively collaborated with by co-designing and codelivering several activities such as joint monitoring, developing teaching materials and cascade trainings. This participatory approach prompted knowledge sharing while building the capacity of government officials, school authorities and communities; proactively enabling ownership of project activities. With concerted efforts from the GATE-GEC team, strong working relations were built with representatives in all offices and a space for advocacy was created, which included public events and celebrations.

In addition to MBSSE, coordination with the Ministry of Social Welfare was critical within score-carding activity and establishing safeguarding referral pathways as the Ministry helped with connecting school structures to the Child Welfare Committees. At the community level, the influence and representation of local leaders was leveraged to motivate parents and school staff towards the project’s goals, such as in the formation of Village Savings and Loan Associations Additionally, the project engaged and trained School Management Committees and the Board of Governors, which worked to provide collaborative solutions to challenges beneficiaries face in attending study groups, such as the lack of food for children or security on the way to and from study groups, etc. A proud achievement of the collaborative work between MBSSE and a GATE-GEC consortium partner, Humanity and Inclusion, included an Inclusive Education Teacher Manual.3

A HI colleague noted, “As result of the collaboration with the Ministry of Basic and Senior Secondary Education, after the launch of Inclusive Education Curriculum, the Minister asked HI for the publication of curriculum on the ministry’s website.”

Plan was a key stakeholder within the MBSSE and national education sector’s response to the impact of COVID-19. Through our place on the Sierra Leone government’s Education Emergency Taskforce pillars4 , we shaped the national response to consider the heightened gendered vulnerabilities of girls and young women. We also developed strategic complementary strategies with other key actors to produce learning interventions and materials that were specific to the needs of the most marginalised children within the education system and communities that the project served.

“I would say that the project was an eye opener for policy makers because Sierra Leone initially had the school for the blind and the physically challenged and no access into the facilities like provision of ramps. We are now sensitised on making sure that those facilities are part of our learning institutions and that no children with disabilities should be left behind.”

District Education Officer, midline evaluation

3 https://mbsse.gov.sl/wp-content/ uploads/2021/06/2021-IE-Teacher-trainingmanual_Final-1.pdf

4 https://mbsse.gov.sl/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/ Sierra-Leone-COVID19-Education-ResponsePlan-PDF.pdf